new year, new home!
Happy New Year from Kelleher Renovations!
Our team wishes you an abundant, fruitful 2026 aligned with your goals & aspirations for this year and beyond. With that in mind, we understand it might be the time you begin looking at new homes, or refreshing your current space. Renovations are a big change and can feel overwhelming. If you haven’t already, check out our post on “When to Hire a Contractor”.
When thinking about major changes to your space, it’s important to sit down and truly think about your priorities. When redesigning a kitchen, think about your day to day life. How can we streamline the process? How can we make xyz more accessible? When choosing a new bathroom, think about frequency of use. How often are you home? What times of day are you getting ready and un-ready? Design is about much more than just aesthetics. Design can and should enhance your quality of life, not make it harder. Consider the following when shopping for a new home, or making decisions about your renovation.
What is your current biggest struggle in the space?
In one home I lived in, the dishwasher was placed in a frankly odd, diagonal bar that prevented it from fully opening if someone was sitting at the island, which was frequently the case. I made a game out of strategizing how I would load and unload the dishwasher to minimize trips, or be able to reach my arm all the way to the back with a half open door. This isn’t practical though. When one takes the extra time to think about a functional layout, you might advocate for the dishwasher being in a more centralized location. Or maybe you’d prefer the cabinets to be all along one wall, rather than spaced out amongst the kitchen.
Perhaps that beautiful, untouched bathtub can be removed to create more space in your bathroom! Or a niche can be built into the shower for clean cut storage for your products eliminating the need for wire racks. This is the time for you to tally those little irks throughout the day. Don’t brush past them and move on, write them down. Think about how your home can be best suited for your lifestyle.
How often do you frequent the space, and at what time of day?
This is incredibly important when thinking about living spaces and bathrooms. If you leave the house at 5am, and won’t be home until 8pm, maybe those floor to ceiling windows in the bathroom aren’t as necessary as integrated warm lights! If you work from home, maybe we convert that minimally used closet into an office. Absolutely love the view from your property? Let’s add a bay window, or window above the kitchen sink. If the highlight of your day is cooking for the family, let’s upgrade your appliances and kitchen workflow. Along with your daily struggles, outline your daily priorities. What spaces do you use the most, and what do you love about them?
Do you struggle with clutter?
It’s much easier than most people realize to hide storage in existing design plans. Usually a cabinet layout will have some sort of filler cabinets, consider swapping these for vertical pull out pan storage or spice racks! Do you have stairs in the home? Build a mini-storage room underneath! Already building a bookshelf or entertainment center? It’s very easy to add sliding storage along the bottom or hide cabinets underneath cushions. Think about how you could maximize your existing space!
Whatever your goals are for the new space, it’s important that you take an inventory of them ahead of time. Log your daily routine now, and ideally what it would be in the new space. This is a huge investment, regardless of if you’re purchasing new or renovating your current. Maximize every dollar by knowing yourself, knowing what you want, and communicating with your contractors & realtors.
If you have any questions, or would like some extra guidance, feel free to reach out to us here at info@kelleherrenovations.com!